Professional Documents
Culture Documents
6
Phenotypic Methods of Identification
• Microbiologists use 5 basic techniques to grow,
examine and characterize microorganisms in
the lab.
• They are called the 5 ‘I’s: inoculation,
incubation, isolation, inspection and
identification.
• Inoculation: to culture microorganisms a tiny
sample (inoculum) is introduced into medium
(inoculation).
• Isolation involves the separating one species
from another.
7
Phenotypic methods of Identification
8
Genotypic methods
• Genotypic methods of microbe
identification include the use of :
Nucleic acid probes
PCR (RT-PCR, RAPD-PCR)
Nucleic acid sequence analysis
rRNA analysis
RFLP
Plasmid fingerprinting.
9
Nucleic acid probes
• Nucleic acid hybridization is one of the most
powerful tools available for microbe
identification.
• Hybridization detects for a specific DNA
sequence associated with an organism.
• The process uses a nucleic acid probe which
is specific for that particular organism.
• The target DNA (from the organism) is
attached to a solid matrix such as a nylon or
nitrocellulose membrane. 10